Cloud Computing: It's the Future of Enterprise IT

By Samuel Charrington	Article Rating:
August 21, 2008 05:50 AM EDT	Reads:	48,923

Sam Charrington's "In the Loop" Blog

We're still relatively early in the cloud computing hype cycle but I strongly believe that in the future, most if not all server-side software applications will be deployed in a cloud-computing-like manner. That is not to say that all applications will be run in one of exactly five global clouds. On the contrary, every enterprise will have one or more 'clouds' into which they deploy applications.

James Urquhart recently posed a question that had been on my mind as well:

If "grid computing" is about running job-based tasks in a MPP model (e.g. HPC)...

If "utility computing" is a business model for providing computing on an as-needed, bill-for-what-you-use basis...

If "cloud computing" is a market model describing services provided over the Internet...

If "virtualization" describes providing software layers in the execution stack...

Then, what do we call the systems/infrastructure model where resources are pooled together, and used for a variety of workloads, including both job-based and "always running" tasks (such as web applications, management and monitoring applications, security applications, etc.)?

[SBC: Edited for length and emphasis]

To which I responded:

"It's my belief that the future model for providing IT infrastructure and services in large organizations will very much resemble what you describe and what many call cloud computing, but will occur behind the firewall. I've got a talk on just this topic at the Next Generation Data Center conference in August.

I've used the term "application fabric" for the resource pooling model you describe. One of the things I like about it is that it connotes the flexibility of the model relative to traditional siloed approaches.
That said,I've used other terms as well. Gartner has coined a term "grid-based application platform" that I like, but I think it speaks more to the upper end of the stack (e.g. distributed app platform/server) moreso than the entire model.

I tend not to like the "utility..." terms as much, because I think they highlight a 3rd party or Internet-delivered aspect which is orthogonal to what we want to focus on here. I understand that it doesn't have to be that way--the organization providing the utility service can be within the same company--but I find that the Public Utility metaphor is too powerful to be easily overcome."

Cloud computing: the future of enterprise IT

We're still relatively early in the cloud computing hype cycle but, as mentioned above, I strongly believe that in the future, most if not all server-side software applications will be deployed in a cloud-computing-like manner.

That is not to say that all applications will be run in one of exactly five global clouds. (That was Sun's idea, which they called Redshift, discussed on Bob Lozano's blog here, here, and here.) On the contrary, every enterprise will have one or more "clouds" into which they deploy applications.

So, what do we call it?

So, what do we call cloud computing within the enterprise? While it may not be the most important question that needs to be addressed, it's certainly an interesting and worthwhile one. And, in some cases amusing:

So it's a cloud, but instead of being far away it's near? Isn't that Fog? :-)
--Ray Nugent

One idea I've tossed out is Intra-Cloud, but I'm not betting on that one. (Neither is Bob; he immediately and violently puked all over it. ;-)

I'm interested in hearing what you think... Any ideas?

Published August 21, 2008 Reads 48,923
Copyright © 2008 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.

More Stories By Samuel Charrington

Samuel Charrington is VP of Product Management & Marketing at Appistry. Formerly, he was an early employee at Plumtree Software, where he made pivotal contributions in a variety of sales and marketing roles as the company grew from pre-revenue to over $80 million in annual income. Most recently, as Director of Business Development, he was responsible for defining and executing the company's technology partnering strategy. Previously, Charrington held sales and marketing positions in AT&T's Business Multimedia Systems organization.

CloudEXPO Stories

Reinventing Talent Acquisition DevOps Style

By Pat Romanski

Just as brilliant drummers have their pick of bands, top cloud-native developers and project managers can be choosy about their employers. They're the rock stars of the business and they know it. If you're not a "destination company" like Amazon, Facebook or Google, how do you entice top talent to work for you? And if you're being wooed, what are the tip-offs that you'll be valued? We've been asking ourselves the same questions, and in this talk I'll share an approach that's working. Your company can become more of a destination company in today's "seller's market" by applying a DevOps mindset to the way you recruit, hire, onboard and retain talent.

Mar. 5, 2019 08:45 AM EST

Nodeless Kubernetes & Vertical Pod Autoscaling

By Yeshim Deniz

Serverless Containers or "Nodeless" Kubernetes, is the future of Containers infrastructure. Matching and scaling the right infrastructure to ever-changing micro-services deployments is a challenge. In this talk, we will review the evolution of Containers Auto Scaling in Kubernetes both Horizontal and Vertical, discuss the trade-offs, and introduce a new approach to deploy Serverless Containers in a "Nodeless" cluster. No Infrastructure or VM to manage, just Containers that can self-optimized themselves.

Mar. 5, 2019 08:30 AM EST

API Framework for Distributed Resources in OpenStack and Kubernetes

By Elizabeth White

Edge networking is on the rise, driven by the growth of mobile, IoT and 5G. Success requires taking a fresh look at network architecture and strategies. It is not easy to go from a monolithic approach to a virtualized, cloud-native, and software-driven network that connects headquarters to multiple branches and deploys new services such as SD-WAN, Virtualized Customer Premises Equipment (vCPE), and IoT devices. Companies need to manage distributed applications and data and deploy all this, from core to edge.

Mar. 5, 2019 06:00 AM EST

Multicloud Integration Will Disrupt Digital Experience

By Zakia Bouachraoui

Most organizations are awash today in data and IT systems, yet they're still struggling mightily to use these invaluable assets to meet the rising demand for new digital solutions and customer experiences that drive innovation and growth. What's lacking are potent and effective ways to rapidly combine together on-premises IT and the numerous commercial clouds that the average organization has in place today into effective new business solutions. New research shows that delivering on multicloud experience creation both sustainably and cost-effectively at scale is the single most important way to meet this existential challenge that can create rapid business value and sustain relevancy in the market. Yet the majority of organizations have been slow to put the needed delivery capabilities in place.

Mar. 4, 2019 06:45 PM EST

CloudEXPO Silicon Valley Introduces ServerlessSUMMIT Faculty

By Roger Strukhoff

IT professionals are also embracing the reality of Serverless architectures, which are critical to developing and operating real-time applications and services. Serverless is particularly important as enterprises of all sizes develop and deploy Internet of Things (IoT) initiatives. Serverless and Kubernetes are great examples of continuous, rapid pace of change in enterprise IT. They also raise a number of critical issues and questions about employee training, development processes, and operational metrics. There's a real need for serious conversations about Serverless and Kubernetes among the people who are doing this work and managing it. So we are very pleased today to announce the ServerlessSUMMIT at CloudEXPO.